A Christmas in Hong Kong
by Phantress
Summary: Based off of W Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil. Walter and Kitty Fane greet the Christmas season in Hong Kong in their first year of marriage. A oneshot. Please read and review!


As there is not even a W Somerset Maugham, and certainly not a _Painted Veil _category, I highly doubt this will receive many, if any reviews. However, if you do read this, do leave a comment! It would make my day, really. Even if it's "boo, this blows!" I'll relish it.

Obviously, I do not own anything. Not Hong Kong, or Kitty. Or Walter. Which is most regretful as Walter in my mind will always be Edward Norton.

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It had all been such a rush. They had married in August, gone to Italy in September and to Hong Kong just before November. The "just before November" part was Walter's decision – he wanted time to prepare for a job that I felt would truly take little preparation. Fine by me. I didn't have to go to Doris' ridiculous wedding.

"Are you sure you don't mind leaving now?" he had asked, knowing of my sister's upcoming wedding.

"Yes, I'm sure," I sighed, trying to convey to him that it _was _a sort of sacrifice for me. He nodded, catching my sigh and clearly feeling the guilt. However, he did not know what nature the sacrifice was. It was not the inability to attend my only sister's wedding, but the loss of my lifestyle and the loss of a chance to get the true love I deserved, and not this bumbling half-wit.

I was sitting on the piano bench, counting in my head the days since we left for Hong Kong when I heard the keys jingle in the lock, signaling to me that Walter was home. I was at forty-one days, when I became far too distracted by the small pot he was carrying with a brown paper bag cover on it.

I studied his face for a moment as he put the small, mysterious pot on the table and put down his briefcase. Systematically, he removed some papers, while keeping some in and shuffling them with ones already at his desk. I presumed there was some method to his madness, but honestly I had never bothered to ask.

Had you asked me five years ago what my future husband would look like, as a girl of twenty, I would have painted you a beautiful portrait! I could almost see myself at a party and hear my voice, with piano music in the background and cigarette smoke circling my head, informing twenty worthy – unbeknownst to me then - gentlemen my ideals, therefore indirectly how they were all wrong. While a conversation like this never really took place, I am now surprised it did not. It would have saved me quite a lot of time, and the suitor's time too!

_A tall man! Strong… built! A fine man, a gentleman. A _wealthy _man. Pale hair, fair-skinned, with a winning smile and shining, light eyes. Graceful and put together, with only hints of his roguish personality in his speech and appearance. Perhaps the occasional smirk, wink, arrogant statement or the slight stubble of his facial hair would show his true colors. _

Walter was none of those things. He was short, a bit taller than me, but to save myself humiliation in society, I wore shoes with as minimal of a heel while still remaining in style. Not that it mattered, we hardly went out. I had met now two people in Hong Kong, and all were most dreary and old. Walter's eyes were two pieces of coal. Two pieces of _lifeless _coal. He had so much potential to have a good looking face, however. Yet, awkward in every aspect, it seemed his face followed suit. The characteristics added together simply could not form an attractive face, they clashed horribly and detracted from any potential he could have had.

He cleared his throat, snapping me out of my comparisons.

"Yes?" I asked, smiling cheerfully.

"Do you not want to see what I brought, Kitty?" I cocked my head to the side for a moment, with an uncomfortable curl of his lip; he tilted his face down and gestured towards the table where the foreign pot resided.

"Oh," I exclaimed, my enthusiasm dripping with condescension unintentionally. "I had forgotten it there!" I realized how ridiculous this sounded, although I had thought so much between his walking through the door, to his speaking to me just now, he only noted the passage of less than half a minute. I could have cared less; it was not the most foolish thing I had ever said out loud to him by far. "Well then… what is it?"

Clearly proud of himself for managing to surprise me, he walked – or I should say, shuffled? – over to the table and tore off the paper to reveal a small fir tree. Before I could even form my face into an uncomprehending look, he explained for me.

"It's a Christmas tree!"

While I was still looking at the little tree, honestly impressed by it's presence as I thought nothing so delightful could grow in Hong Kong, Walter stood before me with a small box in his hand. Smiling and nodding in thanks, I took it and quickly opened it, adoring the present already simply for the fact that it was a present for me.

Inside the box was a small ornament. I pulled it out, I surprised myself by how gently I was treating it. It was a small glass ball, obviously Italian glass he had purchased secretly on our Honeymoon.

"It's beautiful, Walter," I murmured in perhaps one of the most sincere tones I had ever used with him within our four months of marriage. His face – his reaction – to this tone stung me, not because of it's disdain for the statement, but the way it humbled him. It made me realize that I was not as clever as I had thought myself, and he really could see through my fake, typical, tones.

"Shall we hang it?"

"I think that's a marvelous idea, Kitty," he said, smiling. He carried the tree to an end table of the sofa as I followed behind, ornament in hand. He placed it, and walked away. I suspect, he watched me for I did not hear continued footsteps. I tried my hardest to seem graceful as I did so, seeming to put more thought and effort into it then I would have done alone.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked, as I sank into the sofa.

"Yes," I called back, "thank you."

He returned to joined me in the living room after a few minutes, handing me my drink first, and then sitting in the large chair diagonal from the sofa I sat on. The two pieces of furniture were only separated by the end table, and now our little tree.

Looking at the piano, I thought out loud, "I'll have to go through my sheet music box I brought here to see if I brought carols."

"You like to play?"

I shot a look at him – of _course_ I played!

"You like to play… yes, I'm sorry, I know you _play,_" he issued his apology quickly, nearly stumbling over his words, "I meant, 'you like to play _carols_?'"

"Yes! _Naturally!_" I laughed, "What sort of Christmases do you celebrate?"

Smiling awkwardly, he looked down at his drink that he held loosely and rested on his knee. Afraid of the creeping silence, I went into a ramble as I often found myself doing to keep myself sane.

"I must say, if I have not told you," I began, "Christmas is my favorite holiday." Starting to become lost in my girlhood memories, I continued. "Mother always threw great dinners Christmas Eve. She invited respectable friends, some family and perhaps a neighbor or two who had overheard about the party. Doris and I," I began to laugh at the memory, but continued, "she and I used to see how long we could stay up before Mother would notice that we were still up way past our designated time for bed. We would dance and dance with anyone who would, or with each other. Or on our own." I hardly noticed how Walter was looking at me with a different stare, a true curiosity, perhaps? "But sadly," I began again, after laughing at the memories of Doris and I at twelve and four, "the evening always came to an end. We were always caught.

"The next morning was most exciting, however. Doris always woke first, and came to fetch me. We would rush downstairs to find the treats in our stockings, and sit and amuse ourselves with our findings until Father finally joined us. Even though we had ample presents under the tree, he always – without fail – would produce a cracker for us in which Doris and I broke open with no patience to wait until that evening.

"The evenings were short. After staying up so late, and rising so early, it was always difficult to keep my eyes open… but I wanted to, as long as possible. Grandfather and Grandmother Garistin always came for dinner, and perhaps my uncle who was a bachelor. Sometimes a cousin or two, if they were in London for holidays. Or, my Mother's sister and her husband. It was always different. We would all find ourselves in the parlor, unplanned yet it always happened. Someone would play the piano and either the drunkest or youngest would start singing, soon to be joined by others. Then everyone." Suddenly realizing I was not talking to myself, but my husband, I looked at him with an actual smile as I concluded my soliloquy, "Doris and I always knew the end of the evening came when Grandfather Garistin played _Rule Britannia_ and perhaps, if we were very unlucky, would sing too."

Placing his empty glass on the end table, Walter's and my eyes locked for a moment. After thinking about the best plausible place to look next, I jerked my chin towards the piano as that had been what brought about all. I silently hoped Walter would speak as I knew not how to fill the silence after having just completed such a long speech. Any social man would know that my conclusion should signal the beginning of his own Christmas story. Frustrated inside, I forced myself to maintain my calm demeanor and ask sweetly, "And you, Walter? How did you spend Christmases?"

"Well," he began, clearing his throat and furrowing his brow, "I can't say that I remember in such vivid detail as you do."

Wanting to scream at him, throw my glass at him or shake him – perhaps everything at once – I politely pressed again. "Oh," I whined, trying to express disappointed, "come! I'd love to hear anything." He had no idea how much I really meant the "anything" part . Really. Anything.

"Alright, if you'd like," he said demurely, as if I was a terrible master and he a poor slave, and not a young wife asking to hear of the childhood of her husband. "The day before Christmas…that is, Christmas Eve," he wrinkled his nose in irritation at his own error, yet continued, "my mother had Cook make mugga."

I felt my stomach twist at the memory of smelling such a concoction at a Christmas Eve party I had been to last year. The host had been from Northumberland. Such a northern tradition… It smelled like milk that was weeks old.

"That's charming," I said, plastering on a smile.

"Well, I hope we make wonderful memories for your twenty-sixth Christmas and your first with mine," he said bravely, however I frowned at his mistake. What a shame… a very bold and unprompted statement that was wrong.

"My twenty-_fifth_ Christmas, Walter," I said, wrinkling my forehead, "I'm twenty-_five._"

He smiled sweetly. Not the reaction I was expecting, as it was probably only the second time… or perhaps even the first… I had corrected him. He did not seem a man who liked to be corrected, and quite honestly because he rarely made such mistakes.

"Kitty," he said, biting at his lip which it seemed was an act to try not to smile too broadly, "I know you are twenty-five. But, it is your twenty-sixth Christmas." I must have appeared puzzled still, as I was, so Walter continued. "You did not, Kitty," he said gently, "have your first Christmas after your first birthday, but one before you reached your first birthday."

I sunk in my seat, mortified at _my _mistake.

Walter, observant and intuitive at the most random times, saw my shame and slowly joined me on the sofa.

"Regardless of how many you've had," he said, raising his hand cautiously to stroke my face, but settling instead to brush my dark hair back, "I hope you'll have a very happy one here." I looked back at him, giving him what I hoped did not seem a patronizing smile. With that burst of confidence by my smile, he repeated, "A very happy one here," and then added warily, "with me."

Kissing me gently on my forehead, he collected the empty glasses and returned with them to the kitchen where I knew he would carefully place them on the countertop to be found by the Chinese maid later so she could wash them.


End file.
